I listen to your show daily on my drive from Simpsonville to Anderson. I heard the caller Monday morning that wanted to discuss future staff changes, and I wanted to throw my comments and concerns about our current situation out there. Unfortunately, I did not have time to call in myself. Actually, I almost drove through a red light as I typed this up in my mind. I’ll try to be brief, but this is several years of frustration about Clemson football coming out!

I think there are three major reasons for why we have a new football coach at Clemson.

1. Motivating players and lack of physical mentality
2. Game day coaching decisions and adjustments
3. Offensive line evaluation misses

There is no disputing all the good things Dabo has done with motivating and pulling the team and fan base together and instilling a much needed physical mentality, but the learning curve with Dabo is my biggest concern. I know I may be associating him (right or wrong) with Tommy’s mistakes. Usually, a promotion from within a staff comes after a team has achieved a new level of success with the outgoing coach, rarely do you see this happen when a change is made from underperformance.

Dabo has certainly shown he can motivate the team and that he can recruit as an asst coach; however, the staff that he hires is ultimately going to determine if he is successful or not. I think you can ask any head coach or manager in the business world and they will tell you the same thing. I hope that he can pull together a staff that is good enough on game days that can compete with the 11 teams we need to beat to get to the BCS. I think as a Clemson fan base in general, we accept not reaching the BCS as long as we beat the Gamecocks.

The missed talent appraisals in OL recruiting from 2004 to 2006 created most of the mess we had this year. I looked back over the signees from these years, and only Thomas Austin and Chris Hairston have been consistent starters and only Austin has been all-ACC. We signed thirteen OL recruits in these three years!!! I won’t call the others out by name, but the other players in this group still on the roster mostly are career reserves.

I remember that the biggest reason/excuse for Tommy’s struggles from 2001-2003 was the lack of talent on the OL. I remember Tommy saying after UGa killed us in the season opener in 2003 that he had tried to recruit every one of UGa’s starting OL, but none of them would sign with us. After the 2003, the coaches at least publicly said they were getting who they wanted as OL signees and the “stars” backed that up. Unfortunately, this group of players has not yielded out as a whole. I would guess that Brad Scott is generally in charge of evaluating and deciding who we recruit for the OL. I am not calling for Coach Scott to be fired, but I can only hope that Dabo understands something is fundamentally wrong and makes a move to address it.

Do you know if any changes have been made with this process in the past few years that can at least help a frustrated Tiger fan sleep a little better? I am holding out hope that Cloy, Walker, Norris, Smith, McClain, Page, and Freeman turn out far better. Otherwise, we will be having another coaching change in about 5 years.

You called the Tommy firing and Dabo interim hiring, so please get to work addressing these remaining issues holding us backJ

Thanks for your time. Keep up the good work and Merry Christmas!

"They were being very noncommittal with our future, and we had already been through seven weeks of that," Koenning said. "With what we'd done on defense here, not just this year, but four years in a row, the best they've had over a span in the school's history by a lot. ... Over a four-year period there might be one or two defenses that have been better. For them not to be able to commit ... I just didn't think it was fair."

I believe that Dabo will be a good investment for Clemson, but I am fairly concerned about who he will get to fill his staff. I am not familiar with the names I am hearing for defensive coordinator, and I haven't really heard any offensive coordinators mentioned. I'm sure those topics will be addressed throughout the day but I would like to hear a few names that "you" would be interested in seeing at Clemson.

Go Tigers!

Do you think Charlie Harbison would be a good fit. He was at Clemson before, from Shelby NC and is a heck of a recruiter and defensive mind. I know that this year was his first at Mississippi State but he did a good job with no offense. What are your thoughts

This year's win over USC I think is different than past years in the recruiting wars. Can Clemson re-capture a couple of lost commitments and get a real jump start with the coaching announcement? The CU fans have been great and I would think the recruits on Saturday could sense a real difference in the two in-state programs.

Finally, I think that Spurrier is one of the greatest minds in college football history. However, I also believe the "magic" is gone and that he must either protect his legendary status by exiting or doing something extraordinary. I'm not sure I see the latter happening. Any thoughts?